


I could never hold a perfect thing and not demolish it

by narcissablaxk



Series: Now or Never [8]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Divorced Daniel, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post s2 finale, Self-Loathing, Understanding, all of Johnny's demons pretty much, almost, lawrusso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25386454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Post S2 finale, Johnny tries to grapple with what it means to lose Cobra Kai - Daniel tries to understand what it means to lose his life.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Series: Now or Never [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772686
Comments: 7
Kudos: 171





	I could never hold a perfect thing and not demolish it

__

_  
I spent a long time  
Watering a plant made out of plastic  
And I curse the ground for growing green  
I spent a long time  
Substituting honest with sarcastic  
And I curse my tongue for being mean  
Weightless, breathless restitute  
Motionless and absolute  
He cut me open  
Sucked the poison from an aging wound  
Now fifty thousand walking deads  
Would cower at this small brunette  
It's a nice surprise knowing six feet high  
Would reach and grab the moon if I should ask  
Or just imply that I want you to be more light  
So I could look inside his eyes  
And get the colors just right  
Just right, just right  
Just  
But love built, God built provinces  
Built calluses, break promises  
'Cause I could never hold a perfect thing  
And not demolish it  
What am I thinking? What does this mean?  
How could somebody ever love me?  
Talk to your man, tell him he's got bad news coming_

It was past midnight on a weekday, and the streets were slowly emptying. Johnny watched the amount of cars that gathered at the red light slowly diminish as he worked his way through the six-pack beside him. It was swelteringly hot, a humid cloud that refused to dissipate as the sky darkened to inky black, and sweat had gathered in the recesses of his collarbone, a pool he kept in place by doing nothing but staring at the empty parking lot.

He couldn’t bring himself to look behind him – at Cobra Kai, the sign still on and casting a golden glow over himself and the empty parking lot around him. It was angelic, if you didn’t think too closely about it, how the glow descended on everything, glittering and promising and, ultimately, a lie. 

He had tried to build the courage to come back here ever since Kreese took over, wondering what he would do when he got there. He could tell Kreese that he understood his teachings, offer himself as a sacrificial lamb, and move under his thumb again, all while knowing he would probably never get out again. But would he be content with a slow strangulation? 

Or he could come back, demand his dojo back, be prepared to fight for it, to sue for it, to do everything to protect the legacy he had so carefully built. But here he was, five beers in, and he didn’t have the courage. 

It ached too much to look at the sign, knowing it wasn’t his. It just reminded him of all he had done wrong – of all he had allowed to go wrong. Robby, Miguel, Tory, Hawk, Daniel – all of it was, somehow, down to him, and down to Kreese. It was Kreese who had poisoned the minds of those impressionable kids, and now Miguel was – he took another gulp of his beer and threw the empty bottle away from him, listening to it clink against the pavement, rolling away. 

Robby was still gone – Johnny had resorted to just driving around the city where he thought he might be, hoping that he knew enough about his kid to stumble upon him. But that was futile, he knew. He didn’t actually know anything about Robby at all, except that he had been living with the LaRussos, and that he wasn’t doing that now. 

He cracked open the sixth beer, his fingers slipping over the cap. He had hoped a buzz would have shaken some of the thoughts loose, but now all he had was a whirling miasma of his failures and shortcomings and nothing to chase it away. 

It was suffocating, sitting there in the liquid heat with nothing but his own private chastisings to keep him company; he tilted his head back, feeling the sweat trickle down his chest, sticking to his shirt, and let his eyes settle on the sign above him. 

Kreese wasn’t inside – he knew. The parking lot was empty except for his own car and the cashier of the mini-mart next door. He was free to sit here as long as he liked, to tread water in the ugly memories for as long as his endurance allowed. 

But it wasn’t just sadness – it was anger that lurked under there, too, a faceless predator that threatened to overtake him at unexpected moments. He had allowed himself moments of pure, animal rage, especially in the first few days after the hostile takeover, after the fight. He was exhausted, driving by the hospital at all hours, trying to find a way to see Miguel when Carmen wasn’t around, trying to convince Carmen that he was sorry, trying to put bandaids over the huge wounds they had all sustained. 

He would go home and drink until he couldn’t see straight, until all he could hear were the voices of those he’d failed, those who told him they should have known better than to trust him, they should have known he would always be a failure, always be a screw up. 

_You’re like the meat in your fridge, boy._

He stood up, upsetting his beer in the process. He quickly righted it, ignoring the dark stain on the pavement. He looked back at the dojo, dark and empty and wanting, the same longing in it that he always saw in apartments before he moved out, the same look he saw in his eyes in the mirror. 

He stumbled back, away from himself in the reflection of the windows, back to his car, fumbling with the keys in his pocket. It took him a couple of tries to get the car open, and even more to find what he was looking for. 

When he was done, he shut the trunk, slipping his keys back into his pocket, and reconsidered his reflection in the darkened windows. He tilted his head, trying to ignore the way his whole body seemed to sag with the movement, over-indulging the movement with all of the beer in his system. He liked the way this looked better. 

And then he reared back and swung the crowbar in his right hand.

***

There was peace in water, Daniel thought not for the first time. He sat on a reclining chair at the edge of his pool, staring down into the lit depths, watching the undulating movement of water. He wished he felt as peaceful as the water looked, but the longer that he stared at it, the more aware he was that he was practically vibrating with anxiety, with energy he couldn’t pinpoint and therefore couldn’t expend. 

Usually kata would calm those thoughts, but he couldn’t do kata here, not anymore. Karate anything was completely forbidden, and that extended to every form of it. He hadn’t intended to argue the point of the banishment of karate, but it had happened before he realized what was happening. 

So here he was, where he spent most of his evenings now, knowing that Amanda was in the house, packing her things, deciding what in the house belonged to him and what belonged to her. She talked about moving out like it was a temporary solution, a salve over a wound, but he knew better. He knew her better. 

When she left, she wouldn’t be coming back. 

So he stared at the water, wishing for things he couldn’t have, a perfect solution to a complex problem. Not for the first time, he wished he could talk to Mr. Miyagi. He would know the perfect thing to say, something simple and obvious that would show Daniel the way he had been overlooking the whole time. 

But his compass was gone, and he felt more adrift than ever. 

He wondered where Robby was. He had tried calling, over and over until the voicemail box was full and the calls went straight to voicemail. It had taken him days to make the call, initially, but the longer he considered it, the more he realized that Robby’s predicament was partially his fault. He had taken him under his wing as a student and had done nothing to help him control his anger. He had allowed him to listen to his complaints about Cobra Kai with no filter, poisoning his mind beyond recognition. 

And he had put him in a difficult position, kicking him out of his house. A rash decision he regretted right after he’d done it.

He hoped he was safe, wherever he was. 

He considered calling Johnny; maybe Robby had gone to him. It didn’t seem likely, but Daniel hoped he had. As many issues as he had with Johnny, it was clear that he cared about his son, even if he didn’t know how to show it. 

“Dad,” Sam was standing at his shoulder suddenly, her approach silent. He jumped, tearing his eyes away from the water and turning to his daughter. The bruises on her face where still dark and mottled, but she was looking at him with furrowed brows, confusion written all over her face. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

She held out the phone – the landline that they never used. She didn’t tell him who it was, just pressed the phone into his hand and left, her arm still stiff against her side, still in pain. Guilt ricocheted through him just looking at her. She deserved every apology he could give her. 

“Hello?” he said into the phone. 

“LaRusso.” 

He recognized the name immediately. “Johnny,” he said, standing from his seat hurriedly. “Why – this is my landline –”

“I only have your business card,” Johnny mumbled. “The dealership answering machines directed me here.” 

Daniel remembered, suddenly, talking to Amanda about how necessary it was that their dealership phones had the option to call them at home, in case of emergencies. She didn’t understand, had wanted to separate their job from their home. He wasn’t sure if he agreed with her now that it had finally been used. 

“Why –”

“You’re the only one left.” 

***

They sat in Daniel’s car without speaking, the embarrassing ordeal theoretically over and done with. In all of his imaginings that his brain managed to produce about what he would do when he saw Johnny Lawrence again, Daniel’s mind never got here. Bailing him out of jail, at one in the morning, no energy to fight, just an exhausted uncomfortable silence. 

“What did you do?” he finally asked. Johnny lifted one shoulder and slid farther down in the passenger seat. He reeked of beer, his shirt soaked with sweat, facial hair unshaven by at least several days. He looked a mess, though Daniel suspected that same bone-deep ache was reflected in his own face too. 

“I vandalized Cobra Kai.” 

He put ironic air-quotes around _‘vandalized,’_ an unpracticed move clearly taught to him by his students. Daniel didn’t have the presence of mind to make fun of it. This wasn’t the time. 

“You vandalized your own dojo,” he said flatly. 

Johnny turned toward him, rolling his neck lazily on the headrest of the passenger seat. His eyes were deep, dark, sad. “It’s not my dojo anymore, LaRusso, haven’t you heard?” 

It was getting hotter in the car, though from Johnny’s scrutiny or the heat outside, Daniel couldn’t tell. “Didn’t hear?” 

“Kreese stole it,” Johnny replied, the words almost a whisper. “He turned those kids against me, put his name on the lease. It’s all gone.” 

Daniel cast his eyes out the windshield, at the outside of the county jail, the expanse of blank brick. He could hear Kreese’s voice, an echo that lingered in the hallways of his mind in the dead of night, when there was no one to distract him. “You let him –” he started.

“I didn’t _let him_ do anything,” Johnny interrupted. “He stole it from me, LaRusso. Pay attention.” 

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the base of his neck, anything to chase Kreese’s phantom away. “How?” 

Johnny shrugged, turning to look out the window again, but his shoulders were tight, like he was physically restraining himself. Daniel watched him closely, the way he was loathe to admit he did often, when the man was near enough to look at. He didn’t know what he expected to find – an answer to every question Johnny refused to answer, maybe, could be discovered in his body language, and he studied it like an anthropologist. 

Still, every answer he got was directly contradictory to the person Daniel knew, and he was forced to give it up. 

“Johnny, how?” 

“He signed over all of the paperwork while I left to bury my friend,” Johnny snapped, and he was still looking out the window, away from Daniel, but the sharp line of his shoulders crumbled for a minute, weakened, before they went up again, his emotional walls visible in the sharp lines of his neck and back. 

There was nothing for Daniel to say. He started the car and let the cool air conditioning wash over them both, the radio playing something soft and unknown beneath the roaring of the vents. 

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, when the car was cool and he was preparing to pull out of the parking lot. 

Johnny shrugged. Daniel wanted to prod more, to convince him that he really was sorry, but the little bit of him that still had the fire of his teenage self recoiled at the idea of prostrating himself in front of his high school bully just to convince him that his apology was genuine. If Johnny didn’t want to believe it, that wasn’t on him. 

Still, he felt guilty. He felt guilty all the time now. 

“Can you take Van Nuys?” Johnny’s voice was almost tentative. “On the way back to my place?” 

Daniel glanced over at him, his face almost plastered out the window, eyes searching methodically. “Uh, yeah,” he said uncertainly, changing lanes. “Traffic?” 

“Huh?” Johnny finally looked back at him, the sadness in his eyes replaced with something different, something focused. “Oh. No.” 

He didn’t offer any other explanation. 

***

The beer was starting to wear off – or else it was the trip to the county jail that had done it. Johnny watched the city slip by in little ribbons, his eyes focusing on one thing before the whole landscape was replaced. How fast was LaRusso driving, anyway? He glanced back at him, intent on looking at the speedometer, but caught the other man’s gaze and looked away again. 

He wondered if he would ever be comfortable looking directly at Daniel LaRusso. 

Perhaps it was just guilt he felt – guilt leftover from high school that galvanized with the decades apart into a full blown complex, but it was something different, too. There was something so open and honest in LaRusso’s gaze, he didn’t want to know what he’d find in it. 

So he avoided it. 

He didn’t want to think about the ordeal of jail, or the possibility that Kreese could technically sue him for money he didn’t have – he didn’t really care, frankly, not tonight. He was still buoyed by the exhilaration of the glass breaking beneath the crowbar, the way he had to shake it out of his hair when he was finished, every window methodically smashed. 

It ached, looking at what had been his legacy in pieces around him, but it reflected what was left of it. There was something religious about being surrounded by the pieces of what he had broken himself, the thing he’d built only to shatter it. But perhaps he should have had that epiphany in his car while he was driving away instead of sticking around long enough for the damn mini-mart cashier to call the cops. 

“Stop,” he said suddenly, his eyes catching a familiar structure. “Turn here.” 

“I can’t _turn on command_ –”

“LaRusso, just turn,” he snapped, and he obeyed, taking a sharp turn into another empty parking lot. 

They stopped in the middle of the empty pavement, LaRusso looking out the window, puzzled. Johnny kept his eyes on the skatepark in front of him. If there was at least one thing he remembered about Robby, it was that he was a good skater. 

“Johnny,” Daniel said finally. “What are we doing here?” 

But Johnny just pushed the car door open and slipped out of his seat, landing unsteadily on his feet. He closed the door in time to hear Daniel’s cut short protestation, and moved toward the cement pool, his ears listening intently for the sound of wheels. 

The car behind him shut off and he heard Daniel’s footsteps, quick like a jog on the pavement. 

“What the hell are you doing?” LaRusso asked. “I’m not going to be an accomplice to whatever else you plan to vandalize tonight.” 

“I’m not going to vandalize anything,” Johnny said dismissively, his eyes still on the skatepark. He couldn’t hear anything, but he didn’t want to give up yet. Just because he couldn’t hear someone skating didn’t mean Robby wouldn’t be here. He walked up to the edge of the deep pool, peering in. 

Daniel, behind him, came to an abrupt stop. “Oh,” he said softly, taking in his surroundings with new eyes. 

Johnny didn’t answer. He walked the edge, his eyes looking in every dark corner, every hidden expanse of concrete. It didn’t take long to search, and sooner than he’d like, he had to admit that Robby wasn’t there. He returned to where Daniel was still standing, staring at him like he wasn’t sure what to make of him, and paused for only a moment at his side before continuing back to the car. 

Daniel followed after him. 

***

They rode in silence, Daniel lost in his thoughts, his eyes straying again and again to the blond man beside him, his eyes still studiously trained outside. It was obvious what he was doing now, so obvious that Daniel kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. 

He was looking for Robby. Daniel recognized the look, the impulse to check every skatepark, the disappointment and worry. He had done the same thing. He wanted to say he was unsurprised, that he knew Johnny would look for his son, but with Miguel in the hospital, where Johnny’s allegiance would fall was up in the air. 

But Miguel was safe, at least people knew where he was. He could see how Johnny would use the leftover energy he had, unable to do anything to help Miguel, to find Robby, to make things right with his son. 

He glanced over at him again, wishing that Johnny would look over. He didn’t like looking at him, Daniel knew, but Daniel thrived on eye contact. He saw all he needed to see in people’s gazes. It bothered him that Johnny carefully avoided his. 

“If you want,” he said finally, breaching the silence, “We can go look for Robby together tomorrow.” 

He could see Johnny go still, his hand on the handle of the door tight. “What do you mean?” he asked. 

“I mean,” Daniel said, putting enough emphasis on the words that Johnny turned toward him, met his gaze for only a moment before Daniel looked back at the road. “Tomorrow we can go look for Robby together. I know where he liked to hang out, you clearly want to know where he is –”

“You’re serious.” 

He laughed, and he could finally feel Johnny’s gaze trained on the side of his face, studying, inspecting. “I’m serious,” he confirmed. 

Johnny didn’t say anything for a while, but kept his eyes on Daniel, his eyes roving over his face, content to scrutinize his countenance now that Daniel was forced to keep his eyes on the road. Daniel could feel his burning gaze, intense and so steady that he wished suddenly that Johnny would look away again. 

And then they were pulling into Johnny’s apartment complex, and Daniel was free to turn off the car and survey Johnny in turn. His face was still flushed, a redness that Daniel originally attributed to drink, but he figured now it was just the heat, but it intrigued him the way a blush would, a token of innocence or naivete that he figured Johnny Lawrence just didn’t have anymore. 

“We will find him,” he said finally, and Johnny’s eyes finally met his, bright and full of emotion that Daniel hadn’t expected. He swallowed, feeling his throat work at it, and Johnny gave him a nod, a show of confidence. 

“Yeah,” Johnny said finally, ineffectually. He pulled the door open and stepped outside. Suddenly, the whole night was at an end. 

“Wait,” Daniel said, and Johnny turned back to him, brow furrowed. 

“What?” 

What indeed. Daniel struggled to find an excuse, something to keep the night going. This wasn’t the end, he decided, he knew it wasn’t. He didn’t want to go back home, to empty silences and open cardboard boxes in the middle of the bedroom. 

Johnny leaned against the open door of the car, the shadow of the streetlight outside blocking his face. “Do you want to come inside?” he asked. 

***

He realized as soon as LaRusso stepped into his apartment that the TV was still broken. The evidence of their fight was scattered all over the apartment, from the lamp they knocked over to the cracked television. He hadn’t so much as vacuumed since that day, the relentless tide of the school fight and the loss of Cobra Kai occupying all of his energy. 

He caught his gaze land on the television, and a grimace ghosted over his face. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Johnny said lowly.

“But –”

“LaRusso, you bailed me out of jail,” Johnny said. “We’re even.” 

Daniel let out a relieved sigh at that, logic he could understand and follow. Johnny let him have a moment to bask in that relief before he asked his next question, knowing that, depending on the answer, the whole night would be ruined. But he wanted to know. 

“Why don’t you want to go home?” 

He lowered himself into the couch, and Daniel did the same, his gaze cast over to the kitchen, his profile still as sharp and unforgiving as Johnny remembered. They sat in silence for a few moments, Daniel clearly trying to find the right words, or, Johnny thought, deciding between the truth and a lie. 

“Amanda is moving out,” he said finally, turning halfway back to him. “It’s easier without me there.” 

Johnny nodded. He understood that sentiment.

He felt Daniel shift on the couch, closer to him, the dip of the couch pulling them together like magnets. His hand landed on Johnny’s knee, familiar, friendly. 

“I am sorry about what happened to Cobra Kai,” he said. 

Johnny almost snorted, but he turned and caught Daniel’s eyes again, wide and sincere, and the sarcasm died in his throat. If there was anyone who knew what it felt like to lose the thing you were best at, the only thing you were meant to do, it was the man sitting beside him. 

It was surreal, sitting next to the person he always considered his greatest rival, feeling the first bit of comfort in weeks, knowing it was because of him. He felt, not for the first time that night, like he was lingering between two parts of himself, one that he knew well, and one he wanted desperately to get to know, if only he could find a way to be him for a while. 

“I would like to help you get it back, if I can,” Daniel said, his voice cutting cleanly through Johnny’s reverie. 

He was closer now, their legs pressed together on the couch, pulled in by gravity and something else. Johnny wanted to call bullshit, to stand up and ruin the moment by questioning motive and sincerity and everything he could think of, but Daniel looked so honest, and he was looking at Johnny like he needed him to believe him. 

So he didn’t question him. He leaned closer, his aim a mystery even to himself, and when Daniel mirrored his movement, let the magnetism pull him in further. 

His first traitorous thought after their lips touched was that Daniel would think he was doing this because he offered to help him get Cobra Kai back, he offered to help him find Robby, he bailed him out of jail. But maybe it was a kiss that held gratitude and more. 

He started to pull away, but Daniel’s hand landed on the back of his neck and pulled him in deeper, soft and understanding and altogether out of character for them both. 

But if everyone else was committed to misunderstanding them, weren’t they the only ones left? 

So he pushed Daniel deeper into the cushions of the couch, chasing away the pain and hurt of the last few weeks with his hands, tender on his neck and waist, his dark hair soft and tantalizing, his mouth sweet like a summer popsicle, refreshing and enlightening and electrifying. 

Daniel met him like he understood and heard all of Johnny’s thoughts, pushing and pulling like the tide, content to let Johnny climb on top of him, to taste him with abandon, his hand on Johnny’s face gently rubbing over the stubble he found there, rough and unforgiving, sandpaper that ground down all of their sharp edges. 

He didn’t know how long they kissed before Johnny pulled away, his eyes still closed. Daniel watched him come back to himself, watched the worry set in around his eyes and the curve of his mouth. He marveled that, even now, he was still managing to overthink himself. 

He put a hand on either side of Johnny’s face and kissed his forehead, smoothing the wrinkles in his brow with his lips. 

“Have a little faith, John,” he said when Johnny didn’t speak, and pulled him in for another kiss, deciding that it was his job to kiss away the insecurity, the doubt, and everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> I have NO IDEA if Van Nuys is even a street near them, I just picked a name of something I'd heard before and ran with it, so if I messed up the streets of Reseda, please forgive my Texan ass.


End file.
